16.12.2010. – 31.01.2011.

Exhibition of paintings, drawings and prints of Zoran Music provides an exceptional opportunity and privilege for Belgrade and Serbian audience because it has been 27 years since his last exhibition in Belgrade. The audience once again encounters with works of this exceptional creator, a humanist and cosmopolitan, whose life and creative path is determined, above all, by Slovenia, Italy and France. The exhibition includes 53 works from a few Music’s creative phases, created between 1931 and 2000, which were carried out in a variety of painting and graphic techniques.

Music was born in Bukovica, near Gorizia, Slovenia in 1909 when the area was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. His family was expelled from their home during the World War I and later moved to Maribor. The landscape where he grew up has always had a powerful influence on his work. He first studied in Graz, Austria, then in Zagreb and in 1935-6 in Madrid at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he was influenced by Goya and El Greco. He returned to Trieste, now Italian, in 1942 and in the same year moved to Venice. He was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Dachau in 1944. After the war he settled in Venice, painting and making prints of Dalmatian and Umbrian landscapes and his beloved horses. He exhibited widely in Europe and in 1952 he settled in Paris where he continued to paint and execute his atmospheric lithographs and etchings, still much influenced by Dalmatian culture. He won many international prizes. In 1970 he brought out a new series of paintings and etchings ‘We are not the last ones’ depicting the horrors of Dachau. After this period his work often depicted cathedrals and portraits. There was a major retrospective of his work at the Grand Palais, Paris in 1997. He died in Venice in 2005. Works by him are exhibited in public museums and galleries world-wide. He is truly one of the great artists of the 20th century. While much of his opus consists of figural art works, abstract component is contained in all his compositions. His works are highly valued and are in many of the world’s leading museums and private collections.